xref: /titanic_52/usr/src/man/man2/getdents.2 (revision a9478106a12424322498e53cf7cd75bd8a4d6004)
te
Copyright 1989 AT&T Copyright (c) 2001, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE. If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
GETDENTS 2 "Jul 17, 2001"
NAME
getdents - read directory entries and put in a file system independent format
SYNOPSIS

#include <dirent.h>

int getdents(int fildes, struct dirent *buf, size_t nbyte);
DESCRIPTION

The getdents() function attempts to read nbyte bytes from the directory associated with the file descriptor fildes and to format them as file system independent directory entries in the buffer pointed to by buf. Since the file system independent directory entries are of variable lengths, in most cases the actual number of bytes returned will be less than nbyte. The file system independent directory entry is specified by the dirent structure. See dirent.h(3HEAD).

On devices capable of seeking, getdents() starts at a position in the file given by the file pointer associated with fildes. Upon return from getdents(), the file pointer is incremented to point to the next directory entry.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, a non-negative integer is returned indicating the number of bytes actually read. A return value of 0 indicates the end of the directory has been reached. Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The getdents() function will fail if: EBADF

The fildes argument is not a valid file descriptor open for reading.

EFAULT

The buf argument points to an illegal address.

EINVAL

The nbyte argument is not large enough for one directory entry.

EIO

An I/O error occurred while accessing the file system.

ENOENT

The current file pointer for the directory is not located at a valid entry.

ENOLINK

The fildes argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active.

ENOTDIR

The fildes argument is not a directory.

EOVERFLOW

The value of the dirent structure member d_ino or d_off cannot be represented in an ino_t or off_t.

USAGE

The getdents() function was developed to implement the readdir(3C) function and should not be used for other purposes.

The getdents() function has a transitional interface for 64-bit file offsets. See lf64(5).

SEE ALSO

readdir(3C), dirent.h(3HEAD), lf64(5)